×
NewsDay

AMH is an independent media house free from political ties or outside influence. We have four newspapers: The Zimbabwe Independent, a business weekly published every Friday, The Standard, a weekly published every Sunday, and Southern and NewsDay, our daily newspapers. Each has an online edition.

CiZC calls for dialogue to map national vision

ZimDecides18
CRISIS in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiZC) has called for a multi-stakeholder dialogue involving the clergy, business, political parties, among others, to map a shared national vision to move the country forward following the disputed July 30 elections.

CRISIS in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiZC) has called for a multi-stakeholder dialogue involving the clergy, business, political parties, among others, to map a shared national vision to move the country forward following the disputed July 30 elections.

BY NQOBANI NDLOVU

In its post 2018 election briefing paper, the CiZC said it was necessary for Zimbabweans across societal divide to hold a collective dialogue on the challenges facing the country in order to come up with a shared vision towards democratisation and good governance, among others.

“Zimbabweans across all cleavages of society must engage in collective dialogue around the fundamental challenges facing the country and co-create a vision for the nation that every stakeholder buys into and works towards,” the CiZC said in its post 2018 Election briefing titled: Gunning Down People, Legitimacy and Hope: Zimbabwe’s July 30 Democracy & Legitimacy Test Forward to The Past.

The CiZC said its position paper is a culmination of its observations and analysis in the run-up to, during and immediately after the elections. The CiZC said the position paper uses political legitimacy as its analysis fed by a series of 2018 Election Fact sheets and statements that the Coalition put out during the period.

On the need for national dialogue, CiZC said this entailed avoiding the 2008 trap of looking at Zimbabwe’s challenges as problems between two political actors, with the citizens as spectators and pawns in a process that distributes power amongst elites, but without dealing with the country’s deep rooted fundamental challenges to which everyone is a stakeholder.

The organisation said there was need for multi-stakeholder dialogue and national visioning process that has civil society, government, political parties, business, religious groups and unions on board.

According to the CiZC, the harmonised elections were “supposed to represent Zimbabwe’s return to norm-compliance through demilitarising of political processes and a credible election.

“Failure means that Zimbabwe is back to similar political movement to the 2008 election impasse with a governance and legitimacy crisis looming, undergirded by a military dictatorship.”

Zanu PF was forced to enter into a unity government with the opposition following the 2008 election impasse that saw the late Morgan Tsvangirai boycott a presidential run-off poll, citing widespread State-sponsored intimidation and violence against his supporters.